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Toshiba Demonstrates Cell Microprocessor
Cybro writes "Toshiba has demonstrated some cool applications for the Cell Microprocessor. They also revealed that they have written their own OS for the new processor. However the article on TechOn does not reveal the license of the OS."
http://arstechnica.com/articles/paedia/cpu/cell-1. ars . ars m l
http://arstechnica.com/articles/paedia/cpu/cell-2
http://www.blachford.info/computer/Cells/Cell0.ht
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Toshiba Demonstrates Cell Microprocessor Simultaneously Decoding 48 MPEG-2 Streams
Apr 25, 2005 14:15
Toshiba demonstrated that its Cell microprocessor, jointly developed with the Sony Group and IBM Corp., can simultaneously decode 48 SDTV format MPEG-2 streams. At the COOL Chips VIII event held in Yokohama from April 20 to 22, 2005, the company showed a film demonstrating the decoding process.
In the film, 48 MPEG-2 streams stored on a HDD were read, decoded and projected onto a 1,920 x 1,080 resolution display divided into 8 x 6 cells, each of which showed a different video in each cell. The company expects the technology to be used to display thumbnails for a video list. Of the eight synergistic processor elements (SPE) used in the Cell, six are used for decoding 48 MPEG-2 streams and one is used for scaling the screen. The remaining SPE can be used for a completely different processing function.
In the demonstration, Toshiba used an operating system environment it had developed to increase the efficiency of Cell software development. One of the environment's key features is that application software developers can program software without considering which threads will be allotted to each of the different SPEs, because the environment allows the automatically scheduling software to SPEs.
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Ken Kutaragi Talks about Cell
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http://techon.nikkeibp.co.jp/english/NEWS_EN/2005
For all those talking about what kind of OS Cell will run:
ZDNet Article on Cell
The article is dated in some ways (like when it says 16 cores...I believe it is half that right?) but it does point out some interesting things, for example, like the fact that there will be a Cell SDK and a end-user OS aimed at embedded devices and the like.
If you google around for 'cell forums' you will come across interesting discussions where they point out that linux will be ported very quickly to cell and that IBM has hinted at possible uses for Cell as a workstation. Also, Cell is OS NEUTRAL meaning that it does not have any particular hardware functionality that makes one OS run any faster.
Overall, I would say that since market penetration is needed, you can't just say "Here is our OS and our SDK, use it from now on". The trick will be of course, to assuage the existing target audience who use today's OS's.
Also, note that the Cell is not a processor bred entirely for the PS3 or anything like that - it will be embedded in devices such as PVR's, TV's, music players, and in all likelyhood, it will even find its way to the desktop - with its potential it is likely to also find some niche in supercomputing since it will be cheap (if 4 whole cells can be thrown into a game console why not?)
this image can explain a lot for you?8 /coolchips1/images/016l.jpg
http://pcweb.mycom.co.jp/photo/articles/2005/04/2
Actually, the I-frame only is quite a bit easier to decode, since it doesn't require motion estimation, doesn't reference multiple frames, etcetera. It's almost identical to a series of JPEGs at 29.97 frames per second.
In normal IBBP MPEG-2, a given B-frame will reference frames either direction of it, requiring two frames be buffered in memory, and a lot of moving around of data from those two frames.
My video compression blog
That is *exactly* what they are there for. The real power of the Cell comes from the SPEs, not from the main PPC which is mainly there to control them and move data around. The SPEs do the number crunching.
This does prove though that each SPE can handle 8 MPEG-2 streams with no problem (equivalent; probably they are used in a pipeline fashion so really saying one "does" 8 streams isn't too real, but they can do 48 streams as a whole. The typical thing is one for each major step of decoding.)